TORONTO - The 5,000 people in Toronto who will sleep outside, in church basements or in shelters on any given night now have their own lobbyist making their case at provincial pre-budget hearings.

VATICAN CITY - A homeless woman was offered a place to stay at a Vatican women's shelter after she gave birth to a baby girl near the colonnade surrounding St. Peter's Square, the Vatican spokesman said.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has made a surprise visit to a new homeless shelter just outside Vatican City, the pontiff’s latest move to draw attention to the world’s poor.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican opened the “Gift of Mercy,” a shelter for homeless men, just a few hundred metres away from St. Peter’s Square.

FORT WORTH, Texas - Allen Lutes wipes his brow as he prepares another plate of food. The culinary school-trained chef is serving grilled chicken, fresh vegetables and rice pilaf.

TORONTO - The Street Patrol ministry not only feeds the homeless, it feeds the souls of those in service.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will open a homeless shelter on the edge of Vatican City, the latest move by the pontiff to help poor people in Rome.

VATICAN CITY - With financial assistance from Pope Francis, a Rome parish led 50 homeless and poor people on a pilgrimage to see the Shroud of Turin June 4 and has provided the money needed for another Rome parish to do the same a week later.

TORONTO - The walls of the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen’s Park are engraved with the names of former legislators from the province’s past. Not many of these names are female. It’s something a group of girls from Waterloo, Ont., wants to change.

Children are our future. While this truism emphasizes that children grow up to either perpetuate or change the legacies left behind by their forebears, it is questionable whether these implications are considered in the system that cares for Canada’s most vulnerable youth.

TORONTO - More than 12,000 times, people in Toronto slept on a vinyl-covered foam mattress on the floor of a church, synagogue or mosque this past winter.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - The main shrine of Mississauga’s grand Fo Guang Shan Temple is typically used by Buddhists for weekly services or meditation. On May 2, however, a modest crowd of Catholics, Sikhs, Jews and Muslims joined with the Buddhists to address a situation that  all grapple with — the future.

VATICAN CITY - While enjoying a private visit to the Sistine Chapel, a group of VIP guests -- homeless people who live around the Vatican -- were surprised by a visit from Pope Francis.

TORONTO - St. Francis Table is hungrier than ever for volunteers to feed those being starved by poverty.